


The Québec caper

by KByrd



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-10 22:24:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2042490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KByrd/pseuds/KByrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a mission goes wrong, you'd think having Captain America along would help, but Maria Hill is not the type of dame who needs a rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm aware that my French is lacking the necessary accents. It's not that I don't know how to write in French, it's that I haven't figured how how to add formatting on this site yet. If anyone can explain how to add accents (and italics!), I'd be most grateful.

"Ever been to Canada?" Fury asks Steve.

"No sir."

"How's your French?"

"Basic. Maybe a little rusty." Steve does not bother pointing out that his French was acquired in the barracks and battlegrounds of a war and might not be suitable for polite company.

Fury scowls. "You'll be going in as tourists since we don't have permission from the Canadian government so Hill will brief you on the drive. Should be just a basic exercise. Get in, confirm identity, get out."

"Yes sir."

"Should be a walk in the park."

"Of course."

"I'm not anticipating any trouble."

Steve would feel more confident if Fury hadn't said it would be easy. At least three times.

 

Hill drives him to the border in a SHIELD car, not her own.

"Ever been to Canada?"

"No ma'am."

It's not often that the deputy director of SHIELD gets out in the field, but as she explains the situation, Steve gets the distinct impression that she's looking forward to a little excitement.

"Back when I was a junior agent, I got assigned to Turkey," she explains, tapping the file that Steve is supposed to be reading. He hardly dares take his eyes off the road as she carooms crazily through traffic. The ten hour drive is going take about six, he figures if she doesn't wrap them around a tree on the way.

"I was assigned to develop a relationship with this young man," she says lightly. "Came from a suspect family - various members are into gun running, human trafficking, drugs, you name it."

"Uh huh."

"He was studying engineering and chemistry ..."

"So bomb making?"

"That was the theory."

"What happened?"

"At first, he met every criteria. Hot headed, big mouth, bragged all the time, ranted about making a splash, hated the West ..."

"What happened?"

"And then he just quit. Got married, settled down to a nice respectable living. We kind of dropped him as a potential threat."

"And now?"

"We think he's back. If it's really him."

"Hence the face to face."

"Should be a walk in the park."

Steve wishes they would stop saying that.

The drive is an opportunity to prep. Hill's cover is that of an expert in chemical engineering attending a conference in Quebec so she has to prep. In between unmanly shrieks as she slips the little car between semi trailer trucks at eighty miles an hour, Steve quizzes her on the finer points of her file. At least the file is a distraction for him.

She's not giving a presentation or anything, but her cover is that of professor in a rapidly developing field of chemical engineering and she has to sound the part.

Steve figures that Tony probably wrote up the notes.

"You're very good at this," she comments as they review facts that she's supposed to know.

He taps his his own head. "Good memory."

"Eidetic?"

"Yeah."

"Is that a side effect of the serum?"

"No, ironically that was me even before."

She gives him a sideways look. "Sorry, I shouldn't assume."

"S'ok."

"I guess they were looking for smart guys? For the program?"

"They were looking for orphans," he says bluntly. "Even better that my next of kin was fighting at the front."

"Next of kin?"

"My buddy, Bucky. His family kind of took me in, took care of me."

"Oh," she purses her lips. "But there must have been other factors they were looking for? Were there many other candidates?"

"Dunno," he admits. "They ran a lot of tests, but I think they weren't really in agreement about what they were looking for. I was Erskine's pick, but no-one else's."

"Lucky," she says. "I guess having such a good memory helps you now - I mean to adjust. There's a lot to learn."

"Hmm." He gives a kind of non committal noise. "I've created a kind of dictionary of words that have new meanings. Gotta watch those."

"Like what?"

"Well I learned pretty quickly that I can't call Fury what I might have called him when I was a kid."

Maria shoots him a quick look.

"Not THAT word," he assures her, "but there are other words that were commonly used and now they are insults."

She smiles.

"I still haven't figured out what I should be calling women," he admits. "No-one says 'dame' anymore and nobody wants to be a lady."

"I'd say Pepper Potts is a lady."

"So would I!" he exclaims. "But you'd be offended, right? If I called you a lady? I just don't get that."

Maria hedges. "Not offended exactly. It just doesn't fit. I'm not really the type."

"My mother was a lady."

"I'm sure she was," Maria agrees. "But nowadays, being a lady, kind of presumes that you need someone to take care of you. I think I can kick ass all on my own thank you very much."

"And I've got the bruises to prove it," he agrees.

"Still?"

"Just metaphorically."

"I notice that you're loosening up - starting to drop the yes ma'ams. Do you dare swear yet?"

"Not in front of a lady."

"But you could in front of me?"

"If you keep driving like this, you'll hear me swear. Are you testing me? I'm not actually invincible and neither are you."

"Sorry. I'll slow down."

 

"Ever been to Canada?" she asks.

"No, and you've asked me that already."

"Sorry."

"I met plenty of Canadians during the war though."

"Oh yeah? What did you think?"

"Well, on one hand they'd been fighting since 1939 so they were really good fighters. Command used to send them into impossible situations and they'd battle like hell."

"Oh yeah?"

"On the other hand, they'd been there since 1939 and they never let us forget it." Steve made a face. "They'd start every other story with ... back in 1940, where were you guys? Oh yeah - at home in your mama's house .... " He scowls now in memory. 

Maria laughs.

"I guess you could say they could be kind of 'dickish'. There - now you've heard me swear."

"Funny. Everyone always says that they're so nice."

"I seem to remember that the French speaking soldiers didn't like the English ones and the English speaking Canadians tended not to speak French."

"There's still some tension there," Maria agrees. "I think the French part tried to separate from the English part a few times."

"We're going to the French part, right?"

"Yup. Are you hungry?"

"I could eat ... holy mother of ...!" As Maria cut across two lanes of traffic to pull into a truck stop.

"What?" she says as innocently as possible under the circumstance. "I've been here before. Great burgers."

"I'm driving the next leg of the trip."


	2. Chapter 2

They have no trouble crossing the border and then they spend the night in Montreal. In the morning, they drive to Quebec City where they meet their support staff - two young locals who work for SHIELD. Since this isn't an officially sanctioned mission, SHIELD is relying on local staff.

Yannick - a scruffy twenty-something technician - gives them a lecture on the comms system, making it sound like he thinks they are greenhorns.

"Push this button to send a message just to Miss Hill, push here to transmit to both of us ..."

Steve thinks back to the last Bond movie where James complains that his new techie Q is so young he still has acne.

Maria pops a blue device into her ear. Everything else is in jewelry form.

"We figured a guy like your target, rich fellow, he's going to notice if you wear costume jewelry so it's all real gold and gems." Yannick explains. "Push this jewel here to transmit, tug in this earring to call for help ..."

"You see in the movies how people touch the ears or speak into their wrists ... so obvious," clucks Marie-Eve, his partner. "But women do fiddle with their jewelry, so ..."

"Your ability to transmit is limited," Yannick tells Maria. "It's too easy to give yourself away talking to no-one."

She nods in agreement.

Steve is given a smart phone already connected on a secure line to the jewelry.

"Pretty normal to text and talk on a phone," Marie-Eve points out. "This is going to be an easy mission."

Steve wishes everyone would stop saying that.

"Don't nag her though," Yannick warns him. "She'll have to ignore you anyways so may as well not bother her."

"I'm not going to 'nag' her," Steve snaps.

Maria goes off to her hotel, near the conference while Steve catches a ride to the hotel he's staying at with the two local agents. The ignore him on the ride, flirting gently. By the time they arrive, Steve has figured out that Yannick is attracted to Marie-Eve, but she is trying to deflect his attention.

Could be a very long weekend.

They spend part of the day wandering around the city. The city is a maze of one way streets not built with cars in mind. It's the oldest city in North America and the only walled city. There is history layered upon history here along with amazing food and a vibrant culture.

Yannick introduces Steve to 'poutine' - that most Quebec of all culinary dishes - a bowl of fat French fries smothered in gravy and melted cheese curds. How everyone in town isn't rolling around like Tweedledee and Tweedledum he doesn't know.

Maria makes contact with her target and manages to finagle a coffee date with him for the following day.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve sits at an outdoor table on the second floor overlooking the cafe where Maria is meeting her target. Yannick is nearby, fixing a bicycle while watching the back door; Marie-Eve is across the street with a better sight line than he has.

"Everyone in position?" he asks the open channel.

Yannick and Marie-Eve acknowledge; Maria flashes a discrete thumbs up.

Steve leaves the channel open, figuring that Maria would rather know what's going on. "Systems check?"

Maria pulls on the earring in her left ear.

A text dings on his smart phone - please to not nag me.

Steve scowls. Clearly, Maria didn't write this message. It must be programmed in by Yannick whose English skills are hit and miss.

Her date arrives and Steve closes the channel so he can watch in peace. He pretends to be flipping through a newspaper on his smart phone, although he's wishing that he had a real paper to hide behind.

The waitress comes to ask if he'd like another coffee and he practises his French. "Oui madame, s'il vous plaît."

"Avec du lait?"

"Non, juste noir."

"You speak French very well monsieur," the waitress says shyly.

"Thank you." He wonders what he said wrong since in his experience, people only compliment language skills when they're really saying, 'you're terrible, but thanks for trying.'

His smart phone dings to let him know that Maria has activated one of the trackers. Excellent.

A little while later he watches the target stand, kiss Maria on both cheeks (how very Western of him) and take leave. Steve drops money on the table, takes a swig of the excellent coffee and starts to follow him.

The target hesitates in the doorway, checks sightlines and zig zags across the plaza.

Steve feels a little frisson of concern. Perfectly ordinary behaviour for a well trained agent, but the guy is supposed to be nothing more than an academic.

Steve follows him outside and finds him in conversation with a thuggish looking man standing next to a cargo van. The target hands the thug a package and points inside, back towards the cafe. The thug nods.

A black car pulls up and the target slides into the back seat without a backwards glance. There's no time to do anything other than take note of the licence, but from the steady beeping of the phone, Steve knows that Maria's tracker is working just fine.

On a whim, he pulls out one of the trackers that Yannick supplied him with and tosses it underhand at the back of the van. With a soft ping, it fastens itself to the license plate.

Maria calls him on her own phone. "It's him."

"I have a bad feeling about him."

"So do I," she tells him. "I'll have another chance to get Intel tonight. He's invited me to dinner at Le Saint-Amour."

Steve forgets himself for a moment. "That sounds like a swell place."

"One of the fanciest places in the city," she notes.

"Hope the budget will cover a meal so we can provide backup."

As it turns out, the maître d' sniffs, reservations have to be procured months in advance. They cannot accommodate Yannick and Marie-Eve when they call for a table.

Steve shrugs. Let's prepare plan B. He spends some time casing the joint then heads back to the hotel for a nap.

He can't sleep. Technically they've accomplished their mission - identify the guy. But what's he up to?

At the appointed time, he gets ready to leave. He checks the trackers. Maria's tracker is turned off which gives him a moment of concern. The target is at his hotel room (Yannick is watching the lobby as well). The van that Steve tagged is just leaving the general area near Maria's hotel and is heading out of town. Hmph. Probably a waste to put a tracker on it.

He checks in with the agents and with Maria. "All systems go?"

Yannick and Marie-Eve are both in their positions; Maria doesn't answer.

Weird. Maybe she's having a shower?

He gives her fifteen more minutes and tries again. Nothing.

He has a bad feeling about her silence. Time to go knock on her door.

He heads out to check on her hotel room, but Yannick is on the comms telling him to give her some time.

"Why?" Steve snarls. "What do you know?"

"Don't get mad, but I'm pretty sure that she's in his hotel room," Yannick says.

"What?"

"When I checked the trackers a little while ago, she was at his hotel. Then she turned it off. They had something going on, right? A few years ago?"

"Yeah, but not any more," Steve argues. "This is a mission and she's not going to freak us all out for a bit of nookie."

He knocks at her hotel door and when there's no answer, uses one of SHIELD's toys to let himself in.

The room is clean, but not obsessively so. There's a faint medicinal smell that might be his imagination. There's an empty hanger in the bathroom along with make up spread out on the counter. There are three pairs of shoes lined up along the wall.

He calls her again, both on the cellphone and using the comms.

He looks again at the shoes. They include the practical black running shoes that she wore on the trip up, the flat, dress shoes she wore with a suit to the conference and impossibly high blue dress shoes that would only work with formal attire.

He doubts that she packed four pairs of shoes. 

He jumps in a cab and hurries over to the target's hotel. Yannick rolls his eyes at Steve's concern.

Steve ignores him, orders him to keep watch and lets himself into the hotel room. Immediately he notices the subtle security features - the magazine balanced precariously (and precisely) on the edge of a table, the talcum powder on surfaces - no academic protects himself like this. The tracker has been found and is stuck to the mirror in the bathroom as a kind of 'screw you' gesture.

Steve swears and gets out before he sets off any security alarms.

"We've been made," he tells Yannick. "And they've got Maria."

He half considers telling Fury but where would that get him?

He takes the keys to the car from Yannick and gives them directions to find out where the target is.

"And get hold of another car just in case."

"Where are you going?"

"Following a hunch."


	4. Chapter 4

He follows the GPS out of town, tracing the tag on that van. He's acutely aware that it's possibly a wild goose chase but while they are waiting for the face recognition technology to identify their target, he keeps thinking of the fact that the van was near Maria's hotel.

Apparently Quebec drivers attend the same driving school as Maria. Steve is kept on his toes trying to keep up with a teeming multitude of drivers in a mad rush to get somewhere without much concern for personal safety.

They cut across multiple lanes of traffic without signaling and honk crazily if they end up trapped behind anyone going less than 20 kilometers over the speed limit.

He finds himself practising how to swear in French even if no-one can hear him. Holy cow. How does anyone survive the daily commute?

It's well after dark when he pulls into a driveway in a rural region just north of the city. He flicks off his headlights, counting on his own enhanced eyesight to keep him out of danger. There's no sign of a dwelling.

He checks in with Yannick and Marie-Eve who claim to have a lead on where their main target might be.

"Great."

It's more and more likely that he's chasing nothing.

He drives further along the driveway.

The car drives over what looks like nothing more than a bump in the road and then starts to thud bumpily along. Steve gets out and checks. He's just driven over a wicked belt of spikes and his tires are destroyed.

"Crap."

He calls Yannick and Marie-Eve again. "Come and get me," he says. "Looking more and more like something I need to investigate, but either way, I'm going to need a ride home."

"On our way," Marie-Eve promises.

He hikes up to the complex with a growing sense that these people are up to no good. He sidesteps several trip wires and sneaks around a guard house set up to screen vehicles coming and going. The compound itself is patrolled by pairs of armed guards. 

He lets the first pair go by and then stealthily attacks the second, knocking out one guard and propelling the second one against the wall. He appropriates the fellow's gun and tucks it into his waistband.

"Où est la femme?" he asks urgently.

"Quelle femme?" the guard snarls.

"La femme aux cheveux noirs," Steve answers. "Qui est arrivée ce soir."

The conversation has exhausted his French, but the guard understands. "Dans la robe bleue?" He nods towards a window on the second storey of the main dwelling.

Suddenly a massive explosion shakes the whole building. The guard cries out in fear. Steve decides that he doesn't need further conversation and decks him.

He runs crouching over towards the explosion. Gunshots ring out but they're not aimed at him. He grabs another young man and smashes him against the wall.

"Où est la femme?" he asks again.

"Police?" the young man asks.

"Non. Je suis ici pour la femme. Si vous m'aidez ... si vous m'aidez," he falters. "I won't hurt you."

"Arrête," snarls a man from the shadows.

Steve looks up and sees that the man has a gun aimed at him. Oh how he wishes for his shield. But right now he's as vulnerable as anyone else at such short range.

He puts his hands up.

"I just want the lady," he says carefully. "I'm not looking for any trouble."

A shot rings out and the man falls, screaming and clutching his knee which is now spurting blood. Steve hits the young man he's been holding and then lunges for the gun now fallen from the shadow man's fingers. 

He whirls and spots a figure in a dark blue dress running towards him.

"Maria!"

She's holding her right hand close to her body and waving a gun in her left hand. "We have to go this way!" she commands. "They have reinforcements coming from that way."

"You're not wearing any shoes!"

She shoots him an ugly look.

"Here, give me." He takes the gun from her, adds it to his collection. "I'll carry you. Piggyback."

"Are you kidding?"

"I don't want you running around barefoot. This place is booby trapped."

"Give me back the gun!"

"You're injured. Can't hold a gun and hold onto me at the same time."

"Let me try."

He boosts her up. She wraps the hand holding the gun around his neck.

"Please don't shoot me," he grunts. "Really. I'm not actually immune to death from gunfire."

She hangs on to him while he runs across the nearby field and into a kind of forest.

"How can you see?"

"Enhanced eyesight," he grunts. "And yeah, that's from the serum."

He stops and puts her down on a tree stump near the road while he calls Yannick and Marie-Eve. "I've got Maria. What's your ETA?"

"About 35 minutes."

"What the hell?" he swears angrily. "Where the hell are you? The way you guys drive?"

"Sorry, boss. Be there as soon as possible."

"I'm really beginning to not like Canadians very much," he tells Maria.

"Got your first aid kit?" she asks wearily.

"Course. I was told I'd have to take it with me everywhere I go'" he snorts. 

Working by the light of a flashlight that Maria holds in her left hand, he splints her right wrist which he's pretty sure is broken. There's nothing to be done about her lack of shoes. She's also soaking wet and shivering.

"Not sure how to warm you up," he admits.

"Give me your kit," she smiles. "Don't you know what's in it?"

She pulls a tiny silver cigar shaped package out of the first aid kit and shakes it open. It turns out to be a poncho made out of futuristic shiny space material.

She laughs at his surprise and wraps herself in it. You can choose to put the shiny silver side out or the matt black. She chooses to be inconspicuous and drapes herself in the poncho with the silver side hidden.

Even so she's shivering.

He sits on the stump and pulls her into his lap.

"God, you're hot," she says.

"So I've been told," he smirks.

She pulls away.

"No sorry, I was joking," he says, holding her. "Fast metabolism. My temperature runs high."

"Hmm." Despite herself, she rests her head against his chest.

"How'd you get out?" he finally asks her.

"They knocked me out with chloroform," she explains. "When I woke, I was in the back of the van."

"Did they hurt you?"

"No. Manhandled me a bit getting out, but nothing serious."

"You're sure? You don't need medical care?"

"I'm sure."

"How'd you break your wrist?"

"Taking out the thugs in the tower."

"How many?"

"Three. Only one had a gun though. Then I turned on the gas in the kitchen and blew it up to distract them."

He laughs. "You're quite a dame."

"Your Peggy would have done the same sort of thing," she suggests. "Let women get off that pedestal and you never know."

"You didn't really need to be rescued, did you?"

"I waited until I knew you were here," she says coolly. "Figured you could give me a ride home."

"How'd you know I was here?"

"Comms," she answers with a smile, pointing to her ear. "I've been listening to you chewing Yannick out all evening."

"Well done."

She shrugs. "They took all the jewelry. Don't know if they figured out that it worked double duty or if they were just greedy, but I had no way to get hold of you."

"I'm impressed."

"Don't be. They didn't take me seriously. I could have got out at any time, but once I knew you were coming, I figured, better to wait."

After what seems like an exceptionally long time, Yannick pulls up on the nearby road.

Steve and Maria pile into the backseat.

Marie-Eve hands Steve a coffee. "Sorry we didn't get anything for Maria."

"You stopped for coffee?" Steve growls in fury.

"Before you called and said you'd got Maria," Yannick says defensively. "It was drive through so it hardly took any time."

"I'm really starting to not like Canadians much," Steve murmurs to Maria.


End file.
